AGEOD Forums

I'm beginning this thread as a place for players to post basic information that's not in the manual, but maybe should be. For example,

What are the lines of different color that radiate out from a unit, when you press the "shift" key?
These lines indicate the nature of the links to adjoining regions, for that unit. For example, a light blue line indicates that the unit will have to cross a river to move to that region; a brown line indicates that no water is crossed; and a dark blue line indicates load/unload points for naval or river transport.

If you're a newcomer to the forum, welcome! Beneath my signature, you'll see a hyperlink labeled "Basic Training for AACW newcomers". That site is filled with a number of links that you might find helpful. One of the links is back to this thread, so if you want to try it out, go ahead!

What do those green, yellow, and red lights mean, at the base of each unit's icon?
The more of these lights are lit, the larger the size of the force. Green means that they're at full strength, or nearly so; while at the opposite extreme, red means that either the units are still being formed or they've taken significant damage. Furthermore, you can examine an enemy stack's supply status by using the "supply" map filter button and checking the lights: with the supply filter "on", red indicates that a unit has a serious supply problem; green means that they're fully supplied.

Hmmmm good questions, I am curious too......

The 'lights' under a unit do indicate combat readiness, as far as I've figured out, I usually try to 'dance' around enemy untis for them to go out of supply..... then go in for the kill.

What do those numbers mean, in the element details box?
Offensive and Defensive Fire values are the percentage probability of hitting an enemy unit; numbers separated by a backslash (e.g., 1/15) indicate the physical damage and cohesion damage of a successful hit. The exception is "Cohesion"; the first value is current cohesion, while the second number indicates maximum cohesion.

What does "Police" mean, in the element details box?
The police value indicates the ability of a unit to convert a region's loyalty and control. The higher the value, the faster the results. This is a cumulative factor: multiple units in a region have their police values added together.

What is the "Protection" value in the unit elements box?
A unit's protection value modifies the opponent's "to hit" chance. For each point of protection, enemy "to hit" is reduced by 5%.

Why can't I find a table of movement values, in the manual?
Because it would likely double the size of the manual! There are so many factors which affect movement rate (terrain, weather, cohesion, special abilities like "Fast Mover" or "Slow Mover", etc.) that it would require a separate volume to list all possible combinations.

Very nice collection of tips!

Yes...if you come up with more please post 'em. I need all the tips I can get.

I'd love t contribute, but just about every thread I've been involved with has stuff that's not in the manual. Who's in charge of the Wiki? If we get enough people involved it could be updated. I know Jabberwock's like a walking AACW Encyclopedia, so he could help.

Daxil wrote:I'd love t contribute, but just about every thread I've been involved with has stuff that's not in the manual. Who's in charge of the Wiki? If we get enough people involved it could be updated. I know Jabberwock's like a walking AACW Encyclopedia, so he could help.

I'm the admin of the wiki, but I don't want to say that I'm in charge of it, at least not in many of the ways that "in charge" gets defined. I view the wiki as a community project, and anyone and everyone is welcome to use it to further the understanding of AACW and AGE

All it takes for the wiki to get updated is one person wanting to do so; it is intentionally easy to add and update articles, so there is no need to have a large effort organized before going into it. Of course, the more people that get involved, the more improvement will be seen

What's frontage?

"Frontage" is the maximum number of elements which can participate in an attack. The Frontage value is dependent upon the terrain, the type of weather, and the movement rate of the unit in those conditions. In the wilds of the trackless mountains of Arkansas, you can fairly assume that your frontage will be low. Conversely, in clear flat terrain it's going to be maxed.

There's a persistent rumor that Pocus has specified a maximum limit of 4 artillery in any frontage, but this is incorrect. There is no hard-coded limit.

Jabberwock has created a thread dealing with frontage.
Major Tom has created a thread which deals with advanced considerations of frontage.

The element details box for one of my Generals says that he's promotable... but his seniority is way down the list!

There are two types of Generals in the game: those who can be promoted to higher rank, and those who will never be promoted, no matter how stellar their performance in your campaign. The "promotable" property of each general indicates which type they are... rather than indicating that a promotion is pending.

Dixicrat wrote:What's frontage?

"Frontage" is the maximum number of elements which can participate in an attack. The Frontage value ranges from two to eight, dependent upon several variables, of which terrain is the most important. In the wilds of the trackless mountains of Arkansas, you can fairly assume that your frontage will be low. Conversely, in clear flat terrain it's going to be maxed.

It has been written by Pocus that the maximum number of artillery that will ever be used in Frontage is 4. Thus, when you're building a Division, you won't ever need more than 4 artillery units.

No this is a rumor, or I was under some prohibited substances , there is no hard coded limit here too, there is a separate frontage for supports and for lines units, that's all. The rest depends of the weather/terrain matrix.

Pocus wrote:No this is a rumor ...

I have heard this repeated so often I assumed it had to be true ...

So is there no limit to the number of artillery elements that can participate in a battle?

There is, but it depends of the frontage rule. No hard coded 4 per division I mean.

If Line and Support units have different frontage values... hmm. So... is maximum possible frontage simply divided by 2, with half going to support units?
Or am I contender for Olympic conclusion jumping, here...

Another question which naturally follows is, since commanding generals are support units, do they count against the "support unit" allocation of a given frontage? Or do Generals have a frontage "space" of zero (similar to their weight in terms of transport)?

Yes, you are jumping to conclusion here. You really need to get the terrains.xls file if you want details, or go to the modding forum for under the hood secrets

Leader don't use up frontage.

Pocus wrote:There is, but it depends of the frontage rule. No hard coded 4 per division I mean.

Thanks. Yes, I understand it depends on the frontage, but is there an unlimited frontage situation (however unlikely) where say 20 batteries could participate in a combat?

And asked another way, if the 4 batteries rule-of-thumb has no foundation fact, is there any other good guess as to how many batteries are usefully employed in a division?

How do I move my naval forces on the Great Lakes to the rivers down south?
Simply drag and drop the vessel to where you'd like to position it. You'll see the path. There is a single exception:

"The only ship that is unable to move through the canals to the Mississippi & connected rivers is the USS Michigan, which is stuck up there." -- Rafiki

Here is a link to several screenshots of new connections which have been recently added: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?p=101045#post101045

This isn't something that I believe should be in the manual, but I want to include it here anyway.

I noticed some stuff about "AAR" in the forum index. What's that?
"AAR" means "After Action Report", and is the place to go for learning how experienced players think, and how they respond to the various contingencies, tactical and strategic problems which arise during a game. To make it even better, there are frequently screen shots which clarify what's written. If you're new to the game, AAR can give you a "heads up" on issues you might not have considered.

Also:
Who's this Athena person?
Athena is the game's AI, and "she" is remarkable. Quite sneaky, sometimes... and astonishingly adept at coordinating units in extended operations.

What does it mean when you click on a stack of yours and all or almost all of the areas around it are RED?

This means that movement is blocked into those areas. This is caused by being under siege, or a large enemy force in the same region. You will not be able to move into any regions you don't control. If all the surrounding regions are red, you will not be able to retreat from combat.

There's a small blackboard at the top of the screen which has 1/3, 2/3, and 3/3. How do I use this?
In the manual, it's stated that supply is "pushed" in three phases. The checkmarks indicate how much of your transport capacity is available for this supply push. For example, if you have a checkmark in the 1/3 column for river transport, and a checkmark in the 2/3 column for rail transport, then this means that in the first supply push, both rail and river transport will be availible; in the second push, only rail will be available for supply transport; and by the third push, neither will be available, since all excess transport capacity will already been have used in the previous phases.

Rafiki has consolidated information on supply matters in an excellent wiki article:
http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/Supply

I noticed a NATO unit symbol for Goods in the AACW manual, but I haven't seen them when playing the game. What are they, and when do Goods come into play?
Goods are used in another AGEOD game which also uses the AGE engine. Goods aren't used in AACW.

Here's another post that I don't particularly think should be included in the manual, except perhaps as a footnote. Even so, it's a topic that I'm sure many newcomers to AACW may wonder about. I certainly know that I was mystified, at first.

What's a Zouve?
To paraphrase a post by Jabberwock: Zouaves were semi-elite volunteer units with distinctive uniforms. They generally used a different drill manual from other troops, and some units received extra bayonet training. The uniforms tended to make them easy targets, so most zouave regiments switched to standard field uniforms fairly early.

Another reason for that switch was that the non-standard uniforms (with fezes and turbans and sashes and so on) were significantly more expensive to make.
From 1863 onward, Zouave uniforms were often used to reward Union army regiments for exceptional battlefield performance.

In terms of the game, there is no notable difference, performance-wise, between regular and Zouve Infantry units. They exist in the game, because "they were there", historically.

Quite a few of the original Zouave regiments (like some of the early elite regiments) were formed of recruits from fire and police departments. The men were already in good physical shaped and used to danger. That's why I called them "semi-elite".

EDIT: This post was created before I'd created the link library in my signature. The links in this post are also in the library.

Here are some useful links which have been provided by our universally admired and beloved Spanish Ambassador, Arsan:

Runyan's (AACW)
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=6823
Hobbes (AACW)
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=4213
And of course, the AACW wiki
http://ageod.nsen.ch/aacwwiki/Main_Page

I captured an enemy artillery unit, but its not getting any replacements. Why?

Captured supply wagons and artillery units never receive any replacements.

Dixicrat wrote:What are the lines of different color that radiate out from a unit, when you press the "shift" key?
These lines indicate the nature of the links to adjoining regions, for that unit. For example, a light blue line indicates that the unit will have to cross a river to move to that region; a brown line indicates that no water is crossed; I think that a dark blue line indicates naval or river transport; and I have no idea what the grey line means.

I'd really like to know what all of the line colors mean. It is one of those things that I've been wondering about since I stumbled across them, though since the map gives you pretty much the same info as far as I can tell, I'm not exactly sure what useful purpose they serve. Sort of like crop circles.